


Normal

by Jessie0378



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Fluff, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Polyamory, Reconciliation, Sherlock is an idiot sometimes, Smut, Virgin Sherlock, awkward processing of deep emotional issues, first-time, it’s possible that John is jealous of his mind palace counterpart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 05:57:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1929267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessie0378/pseuds/Jessie0378
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has temporarily moved back into 221b following the revelation about Mary. Awkward processing of deep emotional issues ensues, as does smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normal

**Author's Note:**

> Set during His Last Vow. The talented crew of the Three Patch Podcast (http://www.three-patch.com/2014/03/01/episode-20-the-elephant-in-the-room/) had a lovely discussion about the difficulties of writing fluffy johnlock fanfic situated in/after HLV, and it got me to thinking about writing something to fit the bill. This fic attempts johnlock in the treacherous waters of HLV without everything being excessively tragic for everyone involved. This is not an OT3 fic, but it is also not a an OTP fic. Explicit m/m sex shall follow. 
> 
> Thanks to my lovely beta and wifey BmustBaweasley for the beta. You are owed cake.

When Sherlock wakes up in the hospital for the second time, it is Mycroft who is sitting beside him. “Apparently I need to watch you ‘round the clock, little brother.” 

Sherlock tries to clear his throat of the heavy clutch of the morphine. “Don’t you have people to do that for you?” 

Mycroft folds the paper he has been reading into a precise rectangle. “There are some things that need a personal touch.”

“You know about Mary then.” Sherlock is trying to untangle his arm from where it has gotten twisted around IV and oxygen lines. Morphine is just the thing for dealing with Mycroft, if only he could get to it. 

“Mmmmmm,” Mycroft responds. “I know that John Watson’s chair is back in your living room. It was a simple deduction.”

“Who else?” 

“The British Government is not aware of who she really is, if that is what you are asking.” Mycroft uncrosses his legs and neatly loops one of the lines so that Sherlock’s arm is free. “For now,” he adds. 

Sherlock eyes him as he adjust his morphine drip. His chest is on fire. “She mustn’t be outed.”

Mycroft looks bland and reaches for his umbrella. He pauses as he reaches the door. “She shot you.” His voice has gone cold. 

“She must be allowed her freedom. Nothing else will do.” Sherlock thinks he imagines it, but Mycroft’s jaw clenches in a way that would be positively dramatic, if it were not a trick of the light. 

**************************************

When Sherlock returns from hospital in one of Mycroft’s sleek cars, John and Ms. Hudson are waiting for him on the stoop. And though neither dares to try to help him up the stairs, they follow his wobbly steps so closely his eye twitches. 

Sherlock makes no comment about John’s shoes by his chair, or John’s favored brand of tea on the counter, or his small stack of medical journals on the desk. John has come to visit him in the hospital everyday, and has never once asked if he could move back in, even if temporarily. He just does it, and Sherlock rather likes that. 

Ms. Hudson makes tea and brings him biscuits and asks after his chest. He knows she has been worried. He pats her hand and tells her that the boiler is in need of repair because the of the increased moisture in the air (it has not been heated with the same frequency as it normally is, obvious). She twitters off in a huff to call a repair service, talking about how an invalid cannot be subjected to chill. Sherlock feels that he has done her a kindness by making her feel useful. 

John is not in his chair across from him, but on the sofa. John is having trouble facing him directly, Sherlock already knows this from the hospital. His face is lined and greyish, and Sherlock can deduce without trying that John has not been sleeping or eating well at all, but more importantly, that he has not talked with Mary. Their conversation in the hospital was limited to John interrogating him about his symptoms and checking his charts, and the constant interruptions of John chatting with hospital staff. The chatting was also interspersed with John shooting guilt-ridden looks at Sherlock as though he were as responsible for Sherlock’s wound as Mary was. John was, in short, miserable.

Sherlock would like to make him feel better so he searches around for a topic of interest that might be uplifting. “The exudate from the wound is officially classified as serosanguinous drainage now,” Sherlock announces conversationally. “They are fairly certain there is no more infection.” 

John’s face goes several shades paler, and Sherlock is not sure where he went wrong. 

**************************************

Sherlock has a visiting nurse arrive every day while John is at work, and he hates her. She imagines she finds evidence of forbidden activity and insists that the wound is reopening when it is clearly just a little irritated, as wounds are wont to be in the normal course of healing. A trained nurse should be well aware of that. 

John is not amused. John has transferred to a clinic that is much closer to Baker St., and also farther away from Mary. He arranges his shifts so that he has a long enough lunch break to come home and minister to Sherlock midday. Sherlock prides himself on being docile as a lamb as John checks his chest and administers medications. He can be agreeable and on his best behavior with John. John is his best friend and has suffered a major shock. 

John says he is not fooled and curses him for being an idiot and threatens to call Mycroft and to send him back to the hospital if he tears one more stitch out. John tells him that he cannot work on his crime wall all day with his arms stretched over his head, even though John of all people knows how critical it is for him to work on the Magnussen problem. John can be extremely unreasonable at times. 

****************************************

John is changing his bandages one night and not clucking over any stray damage for once. “Sherlock,” he says, “why didn’t you respond to my calls after the wedding?” 

“You know I hate talking on the phone.”

“Sherlock.”

“I was on a case, as you well know. Stop acting like it’s interesting.” 

But John has stopped moving, and Sherlock gets a bad feeling in the vicinity of his stomach. 

“I can’t do this, Sherlock.”

Sherlock opens his mouth and John cuts in. 

“No more lies. No more deceptions. I can’t- not now.”

Sherlock wants to tell him that it wasn’t a lie, that he was on a case and does hate talking on the phone, but the look on John’s face scares him. 

“I’m not sure why,” he says, before he can think about it. 

John’s eyes are picking up every little twitch of his face. Sherlock tries to smooth them out.

“You left the wedding early.”

Sherlock stares helplessly at him. 

“Why?” John’s mouth shapes the word like a command. “Sherlock?” Sherlock raises his eyes back up to John’s and he can’t think of a way to dissemble.

“I didn’t have anyone to dance with.” 

Sherlock isn’t sure what has happened to John’s face, but it has changed somehow. He sits with Sherlock’s words for a long moment and then swallows and closes in again. 

“If you dealt with, um, thinking that you didn’t have someone to dance with by doing drugs and being stupid and reckless on a case, what did you do for the two years you were away?”

Torture. Sherlock thinks this is what torture is. 

“I- well, there was frequent danger.” John just looks at him and waits. More torture. 

“I imagined you were there.” 

John raises an eyebrow. Sherlock shifts uncomfortably. “I talked to you. All the time. The you in my mind palace. It was very real- my ideation skills are superb. Well, except mind palace John would never have done this to me.” Sherlock tracks John mouthing “mind palace John” before John affixes him with his beady stare again.

“Why didn’t you do that after the wedding? Just, you know, imagine I was there keeping you company?” 

Sherlock closes his eyes and fights the urge to turn over. “It wouldn’t work anymore.” 

John is suddenly hugging him and it’s awkward because Sherlock is reclining on the couch and John is sitting on the coffee table next to him and the angle is all wrong, but it’s tolerable anyway. 

**************************************

“Mary called again” Sherlock announces when John enters the room. He announces it in a bored tone, one that matches the hedonistic sprawl he’s engaged in now that he can move his arms without pain flaring across his chest like an electrical current. John says nothing, as he does whenever Sherlock raises the subject, which Sherlock does on a regular basis. Sherlock has considered giving him ultrasound pictures of the baby in an attempt to spur the reconciliation process along, but Ms. Hudson has told him in no uncertain terms that if he does that, she will brain him with one of her heavy pans. He is not sure if she is joking or not. 

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t forgive her, if you would forgive me.” 

John stares at him for a moment, agape. “She shot you.” 

“To be fair, I actually killed myself, at least for a time. Neither of us were successful in the long run.”

John glares at him for a moment and then stalks off to his room. Sherlock is not sure why his logic was not effective in soothing John. The reasoning was sound. 

Later, John comes back downstairs and stands next to Sherlock’s chair. “She also lied to me from the day we met. It would be like what you said on the roof, when you said that thing about being a fake, if that were actually true and you’d been lying to me all along.” 

Sherlock doesn’t know what to say to that. 

****************************************

It’s evening, and Sherlock has successfully concluded a side case with the Met that ended up with everyone yelling at eachother and John in a snit because Sherlock had gone missing when they were supposed to be giving their statements. Sherlock does not think he was gone for more than 30 minutes at most, but John says it was 2 hours. Sherlock feels that there is something he needs to say, because John had really seemed more unhinged than normal when he finally located Sherlock having a smoke with one of the Yarders after extracting a few choice items from the evidence locker. John still doesn’t know about the theft. 

“I won’t do it again,” he blurts out. “Leave, for real I mean, without telling you the truth. And I’ll always come back.”

John is calmly pecking away at his laptop. “I know you will.” 

“I- you do?”

“Yes. I think you understand now why that hurt me. We can’t all have stand-ins from our mind palaces. I don’t think you would do it again. I trust you.” He hits post on his blog and glances at Sherlock, “You’re doing that blinking thing you did when I asked you to be my best man.”

***********************************

It’s some time before Sherlock puts together that John has been texting Sherlock’s mother, and has likely been giving her updates about his malady and generally being dashing and genteel. 

Mycroft denies his request that he block John’s number in Mummy’s phone, and Sherlock has his revenge by sending Mummy an invitation and ticket to attend a show about vaginas that Mummy’s friend has been starring in. Sherlock has sent the invitation from Mycroft. 

******************************************

They’ve been giggling over crime reports for the better part of an hour. At first, John tries not to laugh at Sherlock’s review of Anderson’s old forensics work, but then he gets John with a particularly well-placed observation about a medical impossibility and John is hooked. He looks good laughing again, and Sherlock very much wants the sarcastic, humorous, exasperated John back full-time. He’s mostly been alternating between grumpy and sincere since he moved back in. Sherlock hopes that means he is healing. John hides his sharp edges under his fluffy sweaters, but he has a dark wit that is deeply satisfying when it emerges. 

******************************************

“Why are you so invested in getting Mary and I back together?” John is sitting on the coffee table again, elbows on his knees. 

Sherlock opens his mouth and then closes it. Blast John for this sudden headlong charge into processing and emotional truthfulness. “Because that’s what Best Men do, isn’t it? I made a vow. To be there for your family.” Sherlock has tried very hard to understand what it means to be a friend. He has read books. 

Sherlock looks up at John and then quickly looks away because John’s eyes have gone all watery. 

**********************************

“Was everything with Janine, um, fake?”

Sherlock carefully adjusts the heat under his beaker. He is standing by the table in his dressing gown, and John has shuffled over from where he has been sitting and reading the paper in his chair.

“Of course. I was merely playing a role.”

“But you- um. You were very affectionate with her.”

“Oh, you’re asking about the physical side of things, aren’t you?” John’s face scrunches up when Sherlock says “physical”, and Sherlock smirks at him. 

“You didn’t seem to like my kissing her.” Take that, John Watson. 

“I don’t like you manipulating other people in hurtful ways.”

“Oh! That’s a deflection. You are dodging the underlying question.” Triumphant, Sherlock reaches over and pokes John in the chest, but John only smiles. 

“I didn’t like it, you’re right. It made me feel… I dunno. Wrong. Are you going to answer the question?”

“Are you? Oh for- yes, it was fake. It was all fake. Except that I have a certain regard for her as a person of questionable social morals. I do find that appealing.”

“But how did you fake, um, you know?”

Sherlock just looks at him. John puffs out a breath. “The sex Sherlock.”

“Oh, well, I was on a case and I didn’t have to spend the night.”

“Oh. Oh.” John shifts his weight. “Have you ever, with anyone?”

Sherlock wants to say that on the very rare occasion when he has actually considered it no one can tolerate him for long enough, because when he is nervous he is especially prone to spouting deductions and those tend to be less than flattering and more than a little off-putting. And that’s been a good thing really, because people on the whole are not worth it. 

“No,” he says, and does not look at John. 

“I like the idea of your staying single.” John states it quietly. “Been thinking about that these last weeks, about why that might be. That’s not really fair is it? But there it is.” 

Sherlock considers this and can’t think of why that would be a problem. 

*****************************************

John has dragged Sherlock to a pub. He has done so by telling Sherlock that this is another thing that best men do. Sherlock is aware that this is emotional blackmail, but he is kind of impressed at John’s ruthlessness. It doesn’t keep him from commenting on the inanities of the general pub-going populace, nor does it influence him sufficiently to lower himself to the level of partaking of a pint. He tells John that he got his one free pass on his stag night and is not about to get another one. They have commandeered a small leather couch in a corner that looks like some kind of cross between an armchair and a lopsided boot, but John sinks into it with a sigh of pleasure and Sherlock has settled in beside him with nary a curl of the lip. John is on his second pint when he tells Sherlock that he has looked up Ms. Hudson on YouTube and is not sure that he can look her squarely in the face for at least the next few days. 

“I mean, I turned it off as soon as I realized that it was going to be so, well you know. And, ah, with another woman with her and all. But still. It’s burned onto the insides of my eyelids.”

“It can’t actually be burned onto the insides of your eyelids, you realize.”

“Yes, I understand that.”

“That would require your eyes to have transformed into some kind of laser beam capable of inscription.”

John is smiling at him. “Yah. It’s a figure of speech.”

“No doubt picked up in high-class establishments like this one.” 

“Yup.”

“It would also require some sort of magical healing ability, because all the blood and swelling would surely obstruct the panorama.”

“Christ I’ve missed this.”

Sherlock eyes him carefully, but determines that John is being truthful. “Mind palace John wouldn’t have made me sit on the low side of the couch,” he sniffs. His knees are much higher than they should be, and his tailbone is supporting more of his weight than is wholly comfortable. 

John laughs. “Yes, given that he is a figment of your imagination, I’d imagine he was far more prone to doing things your way.”

“Actually, he gave me a hard time about all kinds of things.”

“That so? What, like eating sometimes, and maybe disinfecting wounds, that sort of thing?” 

Sherlock rolls his eyes and takes a delicate sip of his scotch. “I think we can definitively say now that we know the source of Ms. Hudson’s hip troubles.”

John chokes on his drink and shoots him a look. “Oh god, stop now.”

“Repetitive movements like those are bound to put stress on the socket-”

John grabs the back of his neck and squeezes. “No more, I swear I will get you if you say one more word on the subject.”

Sherlock opens his mouth, and John says, “Don’t think I don’t have ways.” 

Sherlock considers this and decides that he probably does. 

John doesn’t remove his hand from the back of Sherlock's neck. It is warm and firm and means that John has to turn himself towards Sherlock to maintain a comfortable angle. John lets out a snort of laughter at one of Sherlock’s deductions about a patron with a pet gerbil, and they finish their drinks in an amiable fashion. When Sherlock looks up from his depleted glass he sees that John is nearer than he was before. He takes Sherlock’s glass from him and sets it on the table. 

John is leaning very close now. Too close for normal human interactions. Sherlock is not sure if he is missing some social convention that would allow for this kind of gesture that was other than, well, a prelude to a sexual act. 

“I am going to kiss you now, unless you have an objection.” 

Ah. “I, uh.” 

“On the mouth, if that wasn’t already clear.”

Sherlock collects himself. “But you don’t do this. Mary? And, well, men.” 

“We are separated, Sherlock. She and I are both clear on that.” John’s expression takes on a slightly crazed look that Sherlock associates with the criminally insane somewhere in his hind brain. “And I’m not that John anymore, am I? I’m not the John I thought I was, I never really have been. You’ve seen to that. The normal John? The nice bloke with the girlfriend and the steady job and the average life? I’m the guy with the gun who assists in crime fighting and married a rogue assassin and kisses his best friend on a couch. Normal doesn’t live here anymore.” 

John shifts his body so that his chest is closer to Sherlock’s arm and Sherlock is caught by the way John’s eyes dart back and forth between his own. “This is the time for you to tell me that you are not interested in my mouth on yours.”

But Sherlock is speechless and John closes the remaining distance and touches his lips to Sherlock’s. Sherlock has some trouble reconstructing what happens after John initiates the kiss, which annoys him later to no end. He knows that John’s mouth is surprisingly lush and soft and that it opens to him the moment he responds by touching John’s bottom lip with his tongue. He knows that John is making some kind of noise because he can feel the vibrations but not hear the actual vocalizations in the noisy pub. He knows that his hands end up fisted in John’s jumper so tightly that his knuckles ache later, but can’t recall how they got there.

John backs off him after the kiss starts to become messy and frantic. John’s tongue has been forcing its way in and out of Sherlock’s mouth and Sherlock has been sucking on it because it tastes unexpectedly, astoundingly good, and John’s hand on the back of his neck has turned to steel.

John sits back against the couch and runs his fingers through his hair. “OK, yeah.”

Sherlock is not sure that John even notices the small crowd of people watching them. And he himself could care less. 

*********************************************

John kisses him several more times in the days leading up to Christmas. Between the kisses John behaves quite normally, and Sherlock tries to keep himself from touching his own lips where they tingle and smart from the way John bites at them and pulls them into his own mouth to suck on them. Always when the kisses start to get to the point where Sherlock is having trouble breathing and John begins groaning profanities, John pulls away and smiles at him and introduces some activity like tea drinking or take away ordering. The last time this happens John shuts himself in the bathroom for a little while and emerges looking calmer. Despite what John thinks about his naivete, Sherlock knows that John was in the bathroom rubbing the hard flesh between his legs until he orgasmed. He doesn’t know if John doesn’t want to share that part of himself with Sherlock, or if John is afraid of doing so because Sherlock has told him that he’s never done that before.

**********************************************

Sherlock has invited John to Christmas at his parent’s house, and John vacillates between excitement at indulging his fascination with meeting Sherlock’s parents and trepidation because Sherlock has also pointedly invited Mary. 

**********************************************

Sherlock does not get to return to Baker Street before his exile. He is not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. He recognizes that the feeling he has in his chest when he thinks of it being empty is probably loneliness, because John’s things will have been moved and Sherlock won’t want to look at the places where they once sat. But he won’t dwell on that. John will have Mary, even if he misses Sherlock. And John will miss him, and that makes Sherlock happy for some reason that he cannot work out. And Sherlock knows, when he thinks of his new assignment, that Mycroft will get him out before his six months are up and that Mycroft will even find ways to visit when it is safe because Sherlock is Mycroft’s goldfish. 

Maybe not a goldfish, maybe more like a dolphin, or some vastly superior form of sea life. 

************************************************* 

When the plane lands again, he smirks at the three faces waiting for him like he is the architect of the entire exercise in futility. He won’t pretend that there isn’t a bit of excitement buried down deep when he thinks of the possibility- the possibility only mind you- that Moriarty might have played a longer game than himself. Sherlock is reasonably sure that couldn’t be the case, but he is excited nonetheless. He could play the game again, if needed, and this time play it better. 

Mary’s face is more stressed than it should be, given that she didn’t live through the events with Moriarty the first time. Sherlock thinks he knows what that is about because he read the contents of the jump drive John carelessly left lying about in a safe deposit box at a bank across town. If John asks him directly about it he will tell him, because of this new honesty thing, but John doesn’t want to know and he won’t ask. 

*************************************************

John arrives at 221b that evening carrying a bag of take away. He is bristling at the guards stationed at Sherlock’s front door, who are effectively keeping Sherlock on house arrest while Mycroft and the government come to “terms.” John is looking feral, standing too close to the bigger of the two and tilting his head in a way that Sherlock recognizes as a prelude to violence. John does not appreciate being kept out of 221b. 

Sherlock sniffs, “It’s from the suburbs,” after he has snarled at the guards blocking John’s entrance and ushered him inside. 

“It’s the best Burmese I’ve ever had.” John is walking stiffly, still stifling the urge to go back and make his point more emphatically. 

Sherlock wrinkles his nose. “It’s gone cold.”

“You have a microwave.” 

“If you insist.” But John is smiling at him now, more relaxed, and Sherlock is smiling back. Sherlock knows this is a celebration of his return. He knows John wants him here, even if John has moved back to his house with Mary. He knows John was having a hard time keeping things light at the airfield, even though John knew Sherlock wouldn’t be gone forever. John had told him on the way there that he could cope with anything, so long as Sherlock wasn’t dead again. 

After they settle into their tea leaf salad and yellow bean tofu, John clears his throat and says, “What you did for Mary, for us, it was- it was, well.” 

“Don’t worry about it. He did pee on my fireplace.”

John snorts and lets the side-step pass. “Mary and I have had a talk.”

“Mmmm?”

“About what’s been going on between you and I.” 

Yes, that. 

“She’s, well. Pleased you could say. Possibly bordering on smug.” 

“Ah. Well, that’s logical.” Sherlock thinks that Mary has never lacked in self confidence. She likes Sherlock. She rather enjoys getting John out of her hair sometimes and therefore likes it when he and John run off to do things together. She is exceedingly shrewd. If Mary can stop looking over her shoulder someday, her finger might ease of the trigger, so to speak. Perhaps most importantly, she doesn’t want John to be alone if something happens to her, and that is what Sherlock wants for John too. Mary and Sherlock have talked about this, and about how they are going to keep John safe. Mary has told Sherlock that he was always the third party in her relationship with John (even when he was dead) and that it didn’t prevent John from loving her, so little has changed. 

“And you don’t mind that I am, well, also with her?”

The word “also” blossoms in Sherlock’s chest. “Why would I mind?”

John is on him in an instant, the Burmese food laying unfinished on the table. His tongue licks into Sherlock’s mouth much sooner than their earlier pattern would suggest and he has a hand on Sherlock’s waist that is inching under his shirt. It worms its way to the bare skin of Sherlock’s back and grasps at his flesh like Sherlock is in danger of sneaking away. Which Sherlock is not. Sherlock feels overheated and blurry as John starts sucking on Sherlock’s neck and murmuring against his skin. Sherlock thinks he is saying, “lovely,” and it makes Sherlock feel like certain muscles in his arms and legs have stopped working properly for want of trembling. 

“Why don’t you lay back,” John suggests, voice gone low. Somehow John’s hair has gotten mussed and is standing up on end, and his lips are pink and puffy. Sherlock leans back against the arm of the sofa and John crawls over him and straddles his legs so that their faces are aligned properly for more snogging. Sherlock grabs the back of John’s head and kisses him hard, making John moan into his mouth. “Yes Sherlock,” he chokes out. John is bracing his arms on either side of Sherlock’s head, but Sherlock’s hands are free to roam over John’s firm back and his boyish hips and even, tentatively, over the plump swell of his buttocks. 

John sits back, panting. “Sherlock. Can I- look, god, I really want to see you come. Can I touch you?” John’s breathing is erratic and Sherlock looks down into John’s lap and observes the erection that is clearly tenting the front of his trousers. 

“God Sherlock, your pupils.” Are they dilated? They must be. Sherlock feels like he has been poured into a mold that is too small for his body. 

“We can stop at any time, take it slower.” John’s hand is inching up his thigh, “Tell me what you want, please Sherlock. Please.” Sherlock finds it harder to form words than he expected. He growls out a shaky “Yes” and John’s hand is instantly cupping him. Sherlock doesn’t make the conscious decision to throw his head back and emit a kind of whimper, but it happens just the same. John rubs his palm along the length of Sherlock’s sex and pants some more. “You’re so hard,” he slurs. “Let me-” he’s scrambling for the hooks on Sherlock’s trousers and then parting the flies. Sherlock looks down and sees his own erection clearly outlined by the black cotton, with a patch of wetness tellingly placed over the head. Sherlock knows that John has not done this before either, but John isn’t tentative at all. His fingers trace along the shaft and one presses down on the wet spot and onto Sherlock’s sensitive glans below. When Sherlock groans John gasps along with him, as though it were his own body being touched. Sherlock is shaking now, making tiny thrashing movements with his hips and torso. John takes it all in, slack-eyed, and starts squeezing Sherlock’s cock through his pants. “John-,” Sherlock tries to tell him, “I’m-”. John is working his other hand down to cup Sherlock’s testicles, and when Sherlock feels him squeezing them he can’t stop himself. He comes without John ever getting him out of his pants, too turned on by John’s exploration to last. 

“Sherlock, Sherlock,” John is moaning. “Oh that’s- Christ.” He’s kissing Sherlock again, but Sherlock is too uncoordinated to move his lips properly. “I need to-.” John’s hand is moving between his own legs, and Sherlock can see his shoulder moving rhythmically. Sherlock’s “No” sounds more like something with a “w” in it, but it stops John for long enough to allow Sherlock’s tingling hands to pull him closer and reach down to squeeze John’s hand where is covers his own erection. 

“Sherlock,” John moans. Sherlock pushes John’s hand aside and unfastens his trousers, pushing at John’s pants. His coordination is coming back, and he knows enough to know that if he doesn’t get a look at John like this, he won’t be able to sleep for a week while he tries to theorize every detail of John’s flesh. John’s helps him, because Sherlock’s impatience threatens to bend John’s penis at an alarming angle. When it is free, Sherlock pushes John back so he can look at him while his heart pounds at the novelty of holding another cock in his hand. John’s cock. “Please,” John moans. Sherlock wraps his fingers around John's penis and tests its girth. He stretches his thumb and middle finger out to measure its length. “Sherlock, are you-? Oh god. Please. I need to come.” Sherlock would like to make a better study of it in more favorable lighting, but John’s desperation is palpable. He squeezes John’s cock in his palm and only gets to slide his fist up once, twice, three times before John is orgasming in his hand and crying out into the room. 

*************************************************

John keeps his job at the clinic close to Baker St. It means that he can stop in on Sherlock and Ms. Hudson more often. Mary comes on the weekend sometimes, but mostly she texts Sherlock and they keep on top of the task of managing John together. 

Sherlock has been experimenting on some feet that Molly has brought for him when Mary texts Sherlock and tells him to call John the next time he spills acid on himself, because John wouldn’t stop going on about it all last night. Sherlock tells her that the threat of a skin graft was excessive and asks after the fetus. Mary says she has been kicking her in the bladder on and off all day. 

Mary is going off to a friend's house in the country for a week, now that she is officially on leave. She says she expects to get all sorts of useful advice about newborns and that it is important that Sherlock look after John while she is away. Since John is to look after the house, Sherlock has been invited to go and stay with John. Sherlock tells Mary that he is worried he will catch some kind of mediocrity disease from being out there too long, and Mary says that he will just have to put his big boy pants on. 

*****************************************

Sherlock has never actually been out to the house before. He knows where it is, but John and Mary have always come to him, which Sherlock feels is only right because it brings them the benefits of being in civilization. 

The house is neat and shows Mary’s design sense. John shows him the original woodwork in the kitchen, and where they have remodeled the floor in the sitting room. He shows Sherlock the storage room where John’s bike leans against the wall, and he shows him the small room where the baby will sleep, all done in yellow. 

“And this is the bedroom.”

John is hovering by the doorway, looking a little flustered.

“Yes yes, very nice.”

Sherlock is not sure exactly what he should be looking at. John seems to be waiting for something. 

“With a bed.” 

“I did see that. It’s- wait, here?” Sherlock is just now noticing that John’s pupils are blown and a flush has crept up his neck. 

“It’s my bed, and I like the idea of you in it.” 

“Won’t Mary be-”

“She really won’t.”

John comes toward him and places his hands on Sherlock’s hips. “Ok?” he asks. He licks his lips and Sherlock realizes that he is further gone than Sherlock had originally suspected. Sherlock is still wearing his coat.

“Erm, yes.”

John nudges his nose along Sherlock’s jaw and breathes in a deep breath. “I like the way you smell,” he says, scenting down Sherlock’s neck. “It makes me think of sex.” 

Does it? Sherlock hasn’t masturbated since yesterday, and he’s showered in between. “I’ve... washed, since.” 

John’s face cracks into a smile. “No, just smelling you makes me think of sex Sherlock. Wait, since what?”

“Since, you know.”

“Sherlock Holmes, were you wanking?” John is grinning. “I knew you must, but...what were you thinking about?”

Sherlock freezes and he can feel his face heat up. “I- ah.”

“Was it me? Please tell me it was me.” John’s hands are stroking up his sides now, and Sherlock continues to marvel at how fast his heart rate gets when John touches him. Sherlock nods.

“Oh god let’s get this off you.” John is stripping Sherlock’s coat off. “Later I am going to make you tell me what you were fantasizing about. But I want your mouth. Right now.” Sherlock tilts his head down and gives it to him. John doesn’t hesitate to open his mouth and invite Sherlock’s tongue in for a kiss that has already dispensed with any closed mouth teasing. John is unbuttoning Sherlock’s shirt, which is proving difficult because John is also pressing his body tightly against Sherlock’s. He has to break the kiss to strip Sherlock’s vest off and Sherlock, daringly, tells him, “I was thinking about how much pre come you leak before you come, and what that might taste like.”

“Oh my god, oh my god, get out of your clothes right now.” 

Sherlock assists by taking his shoes and socks off and John gets Sherlock’s trousers down before tearing off his own jumper. When Sherlock looks up again John is completely naked and, well, very erect. Sherlock drags his eyes back up to John’s face after a long moment and John doesn’t break eye contact as he lays himself back on the bed. 

Sherlock is still in his pants but he moves over to the bed and looks down at John, fascinated. John’s cock is making little movements where it lays heavily on his stomach and the long muscle in his thigh gives a twitch. Sherlock surveys the rounded line of his calf from ankle to knee and the rosy color of his tiny nipples. John reaches out and takes his hand and says, “You’re killing me here,” and Sherlock clambers onto the bed next to him, unsure what to do do with all this flesh. 

He smooths his hand down John’s chest and strokes across his ribs. He moves his thumb across John’s collarbones, marveling at how pronounced they are against the musculature of his naked shoulders. He leans over and nuzzles the closest nipple until John says, “Bite it.”

He does, and John’s breathing becomes labored and his hand finds it’s way to Sherlock’s hair and digs in. He pulls Sherlock up for another kiss and Sherlock gets lost for awhile in John’s mouth and the softness of all John’s skin pressing against him. He realizes that he has been angling himself more and more on top of John when John breaks the kiss and spreads his legs so that Sherlock can lie in between them. Sherlock is caught up by the insides of John’s thighs touching him, which seems unbelievably intimate somehow. It also brings their genitals in contact with one another, through Sherlock’s pants, and John’s eyes roll back in his head. 

Sherlock waits until John’s eyes are back on him and then he reaches down and touches the damp head of John’s cock with his thumb and brings it back to his mouth. “Jesus Christ,” John gasps. “Sherlock!” Sherlock decides he likes the taste of John on his finger and reaches down again for more of a feel. He cups one pale inner thigh, then John’s testicles. John moans and Sherlock is encouraged to roll them around in his hand, press at the base of them where it feels good on his own body. John’s legs part farther and draw up a bit, and Sherlock’s fingers brush against something hot and puckered. Sherlock moves his fingers back to safer territory and freezes, hopeful that he has not committed an inadvertent faux pas. But John tilts his hips and Sherlock’s fingers run down the seam of him again.

“I like that. You can- here.” John fumbles around and hands him a bottle of lubricant from the bedside table. Ah. Non plasma producing orifice filled with nerve endings specific to pleasure. Prostate gland. John wants Sherlock to finger him. 

Something must be showing on his face because John takes the bottle and makes his fingers into a tight slick ring and then works them over two of Sherlock’s while Sherlock’s heart pounds wildly in his chest. John transfers his grip to Sherlock’s wrist and guides it down until Sherlock’s middle finger rests against his anus. “Like this,” he breathes, looking wrecked already, and then he tilts his body up while he exerts steady pressure on Sherlock’s wrist. Sherlock’s finger sinks into the clenched orifice and John arches his neck and his body squeezes Sherlock’s finger so hard it makes Sherlock’s vision blur. “Oh god, I’ve always wondered what it felt like to get fucked with a cock,” John moans.

Sherlock feels like he is having trouble getting enough oxygen. He can’t, he can’t push his penis into John’s squeezing, pulsing anus without falling apart immediately, without hurting John, without losing control. 

John raises his head from the pillow. “I want you to do that to me. I want you to make me come that way.”

Sherlock moans and tries to get a grip on himself and think of what to do, but John tells him, “Two fingers now. I want two Sherlock.” Sherlock finds that his index finger has been rubbing against the ring of muscle already and he tucks it in alongside his middle finger and does as he is told. John pants and lets go of his wrist in favor of clenching the bedspread. Mindlessly Sherlock’s fingers sink into the third knuckle and John groans, “Christ, you have long fingers. God, yes. OK, pull back some, a little more, yes like that- fuck- and just curl towards the front of my body a bit.” John’s whole body lurches when Sherlock finds his prostate and applies pressure, and John lets out a stream of profanities. 

“Enough!” John gasps, and licks his lips. “I take it back, don’t touch it again right now. I want this to last longer.” Sherlock starts to pull his fingers out but John grabs his wrist again and prevents Sherlock from withdrawing. “No, no,” he pants. “Don’t take them out yet. Can you, can I see your cock?”

Sherlock shuffles up on his knees and and uses his left hand to pull his pants down while John makes sure his fingers are kept firmly rooted inside him. It feels somehow extra dirty to expose himself this way, with John squeezing his fingers and his pants around his thighs. 

“Oh yes,” John says, nearly a moan. “Oh that’s- that’s going to go up me nicely. Let’s move your fingers now.” His grip on Sherlock’s wrist has become steely and he moves Sherlock’s fingers in and out with intent, fucking himself on them with increasing force while he eyes are fastened on Sherlock’s erection. Sherlock is riveted by the way John’s body molds itself around his fingers, by the way John’s testicles have helpfully pulled up and out of the way, by the “O” John’s mouth has formed as he works himself on Sherlock. He is a little frightened by how much he wants to fit himself inside John and take him, now that he has watched John’s face while he knuckles up inside him. 

John lets go of him and twists his torso over to scramble around in the drawer and Sherlock can’t help but drag his fingers over that little gland, now that John has left off using his fingers as a personal sex toy. John gasps and grips the side of the drawer until Sherlock’s fingers straighten out again. “Of course you’re a quick learner,” he pants, trying to get his breathing under control. He locates the foil packet and tears it open with his teeth. “J-just let me get this on you, yeah?” John reaches down between his own spread legs and gently takes a hold of Sherlock’s cock and rolls the condom down him. Sherlock has to suck in his breath as John’s hand moves the ring of latex down his shaft and then rubs more lubricant over him, caressing the large vein running up the underside with a greedy motion of his thumb. Sherlock’s cock looks a little alien through the opaque wrapping, but it also makes him groan out loud when he looks at it because of what the condom is on him so he can do. What John wants him to do. Sherlock has never felt wanted like this before in his life. 

John is looking at him through glazed eyes, watching Sherlock’s face as he fondles Sherlock’s erection. John pulls at his shoulders and Sherlock comes forward and plants his arms on either side of John’s head, his cock throbbing and aching between his legs. He chokes when John’s hand squeezes him tightly and steers Sherlock’s penis to rest against his hole. 

“Here,” John says, voice gruff and desperate. “Right here, Sherlock.” 

“John,” Sherlock says, low. John’s hands are on his back, and Sherlock has to adjust his knees so that he can find the right leverage before pushing against, and then into, where John where is slick and ready. Sherlock feels like he is coming apart at the seams, head throbbing, muscles quivering, harder than he can ever remember being. He can hear John making pleading, strained, full, noises as he seats himself inside that impossibly tight passage, but Sherlock’s eyes seem to have crossed and all he sees are blurry shapes. John doesn’t let him pause once the length of him is buried, but grabs ahold of Sherlock’s buttocks and wiggles on his cock, gasping. Sherlock stops breathing in shock at the sensation.

“More Sherlock,” John groans. “Push it in and out so I can feel you.” Sherlock moves in John with small incremental movements, hardly able to believe that John has hidden this sucking, squeezing part of his body from Sherlock for so long. Sherlock lets out a distressed sounding whimper, overwhelmed, and John understands him. 

“Here, bite down.” John is directing him to his shoulder with a shaking hand. Sherlock comes down on his elbows and gnaws at the rounded ball of John's shoulder joint and finally starts to hump into John in earnest. John breaks out and YELLS when Sherlock builds up to the first hard thrust. 

“Holy, oh fuck that’s- oh god, oh please keep going, I didn’t know. OH GOD, oh shite, Sherlock fuck me.” Sherlock is trying to do just that. He wants John to feel this throughout his whole body, wants to service him so well that it stays with John for days. He can’t stop his hips from grinding and pumping and he can’t get enough of John’s silky, spasming insides or his breathy yelps of lust. He loves being on top of John, he loves feeling John writhe beneath him. He can’t, he can’t help but push down and in. Sherlock thinks wildly that it’s John’s thighs parted around him that are the most shocking, wantonly letting Sherlock between them, letting him burrow into this excruciatingly tight place inside him.

John gets ahold of one of Sherlock’s hands fisted in the bedding and drags it down his body and over his cock. John is very hard and making a mess of himself and Sherlock has to take a moment to rebalance himself so he can continue to ream John properly while coordinating his hand on John’s sex. He thinks it is only fair that he make his fist into a tight sheath the way John’s arsehole is doing for Sherlock, but it is difficult to concentrate on that while John’s body is depriving him of all his sense. His rhythm on John’s cock is sporadic, but John doesn’t seem to mind. 

One of John’s legs spasms and Sherlock catches it on his shoulder as he’s making a hard push up and in and he is suddenly deeper than he’d been before because John has been folded back farther and opened up wider. John lets out a strangled shout and Sherlock tries to tell him that he is losing it, that he is going to orgasm or possibly implode. 

“Here,” John moans, “yes hold on to me here and come for me- oh, OH!” But it’s John who has started coming first, ejaculating into Sherlock’s fist in long pulses. Sherlock squeezes John’s cock and John’s rectum squeezes Sherlock and Sherlock comes so hard he tastes blood in his mouth. He thinks the sensation of having an orgasm inside someone, inside John, is singular. 

He lies on John and jerks and twitches while he tries to remember how to breathe and think. John, for his part, appears to be made of rubber after being fucked. He tells Sherlock how to pull out and take off the condom, but has no ability to move and just lies there with his limbs akimbo and his head rolling around on his neck. Sherlock is slightly concerned about this, and after tossing the condom over the side of the bed and pulling up his pants, he runs his hand over John checking for any obvious signs of distress. John hums and lets himself be rotated this way and that. When Sherlock rolls him onto his side John’s leg slips forward and Sherlock gets a peek at the reddened pucker tucked between John’s cheeks and he feels his face heat. He rolls John back over quickly before the urge to put something back inside it becomes overwhelming.

“Oh god, the neighbors.” John is trying to work up a face but begins to giggle instead. “I was really loud wasn’t I?” 

Sherlock isn’t sure how loud John was because of the roaring in his own ears and the uncharacteristic lack of observational skills he seems to have when his body comes in close proximity to John’s. 

“You OK?” John asks, finding enough coordination to lay his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “I’m sorry if I got a bit, well, carried away.”

“No,” Sherlock says. “No, I- I liked that.” 

“Yeah? That’s good, because I am not sure I can control myself around you.”

Sherlock feels himself flush again, which is ridiculous. He tucks his head into John’s neck and John slings an arm around him and draws him close. 

“Bet mind palace John never did that,” John says after a moment. Sherlock peers down the length of John’s naked body. “Um, no,” he says, and they snicker like school boys for a while. 

***********************************

Sherlock decides that maybe it is a good thing that John doesn’t live with him anymore. He is not sure how much more he can take of his mind not being his own. John seems to own it for the time being. His week in the suburbs was...enlightening. 

Even after he returns to Baker St. he has some trouble concentrating on The Work, which is not helped by John texting him details about all the ways in which he is sore and aching after his week with Sherlock. Sherlock makes a deal with his body that it can have his attention in the shower and just before bed, if necessary, and of course whenever John comes around, if it will give him peace the rest of the time. He is still working out the details of the arrangement, given the devious cheating nature of bodily flesh, but he is getting better at it. He tells John about the compromise and John says that he thinks it quite fair and will try not to introduce the subject outside of those parameters. That night he calls Sherlock at bedtime and induces Sherlock to orgasm by telling him about how he could still taste Sherlock’s semen in his mouth after he returned to the clinic and how it turned him on so much that he had to wank in the supply cupboard. 

Sherlock has observed that John feels a great deal of pride over his ability to make Sherlock lose control, but he is so gleeful about it that Sherlock can only grumble about John’s emerging egotism halfheartedly. 

********************************

Mycroft is sitting in Sherlock’s chair when he returns to 221b one afternoon. 

“Brother dearest,” Mycroft says, flicking a piece of lint off his shoulder. “Could you perhaps concentrate on matters of a higher order for a moment? Or should I come back after the honeymoon period is over?”

“I neglected to clean that chair after John was by on his lunch yesterday. I’m afraid it became rather...sticky.”

“Charming,” Mycroft says with a smile pinched between fastidious disdain and a lack of any real disapproval. 

Sherlock settles himself in John’s chair. "Would you like some details? John is really rather inventive-"

"I've come about Moriarty."

Sherlock sits back and observes Mycroft. Slowly he starts to bare his teeth in a hard smile. "The game is back on then."

Mycroft nods. "Different rules and different players this time, but essentially, yes." He surveys Sherlock and grips the handle of his umbrella. "We have some planning to do."

**********************************

THE END


End file.
